A Chance Encounter
by JuniorMintJulep
Summary: Kirk is just trying to put the events on Genesis behind him, but it all catches up with him at the spaceport, of all places. Because surely Saavik wasn't the only one. Kirk/OC
1. Chapter 1

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

"This is the final boarding call for Atlantair shuttle 138 to Baltimore. Passengers on standby for Lunamod shuttle 923, please report to gate 12C." The spaceport's computerized announcement system offered what seemed, to Captain James Kirk's ears, a melodramatic pause before continuing: "TransPort flight 176 remains delayed until further notice."

Kirk stretched out his legs and sighed. He propped a foot against an unoccupied seat and glanced around the nearly empty waiting area. Past the observation area and food court, in the brightly-lit atrium in the main terminal, he could see an endless stream of humanoids and non-humanoid beings as they passed by on their way to customs or in search of an empty sleep pod. He picked up far-away laughter and snatches of conversation in a dozen different languages, squeals of welcome, and tearful goodbyes, all competing with the intermittent drone of the announcement system. The talking heads on the vidscreens were muted, but an ever-shifting parade of lights and colors from the monitors made his eyes ache. He grimaced and turned to the man seated next to him, who was watching Jim watching the crowds.

"It looks like we'll be here for a while, Bones. They're not even giving a departure estimate anymore."

Leonard McCoy stuffed his bag under the seat next to him, then looked up with narrowed eyes and wagged a finger at his friend. "Well, you're the one who turned down the Starfleet transport. And since when are civilian flights ever on time, hmm? Security breaches, sleep-deprived pilots, the occasional crack in the hull—too many things can go wrong. Starfleet may not be big on comfort but at least it's efficient."

Kirk snorted. "This from a man who wears his aviophobia like a badge of honor? Besides, you didn't have to come with me," he said. "But Admiral Wilson was on that passenger list. Would you really want to sit next to Wilson all the way to Starbase Eight?"

A stricken look passed across the doctor's features. "Point taken," he muttered. "At least we found ourselves a nice quiet corner to—"

"Captain Kirk?"

A terminal security guard strode toward the two men, voice booming across the atrium. He continued before Kirk could open his mouth to respond. "You left this at the checkpoint, sir." He dropped a small squarish package, wrapped in brown paper, into the captain's hands, and turned crisply on his heel to leave.

"Uh, thanks," Kirk said to his retreating back.

McCoy peered at the box. "What's that?" Kirk stuffed it into his jacket pocket, avoiding McCoy's gaze.

"Nothing. Mind your own business for once, Bones. It's nothing."

The words, which in another time might have been teasing or merely annoyed, were instead curt, and the doctor counted to ten before he replied.

"You're gonna take some time off after this, aren't you, Jim? Hell, I had a Vulcan take my brain hostage and you can damn well be sure I'll be spending some quality time on Wrigley's. How about you take a vacation, some time to think and relax—spend a few weeks in the woods, go climb a mountain or something. When all these blasted inquiries are over you'll have to face some questions of your own, you know."

Kirk made a dismissive gesture and turned to gaze out the terminal's floor-to-ceiling windows at the cityscape beyond. The skyscrapers, shrouded in fog and the late twilight shadows, were nearly hidden but for the occasional lighted window where some poor soul toiled through even the dinner hour. Reflections of the spaceport's twinkling lights danced in the lazy ripples of the bay, and high in the winter sky a moon dog chased the bright full orb. He rubbed his eyes and was considering settling in for a nap when he saw from the corner of his eye a tall young woman crossing the waiting area toward them. "Oh, for god's sake. So much for our nice quiet corner," he said under his breath. He ignored the quiet laugh from McCoy.

She stopped a meter from them, her fingers laced tightly together. Her sleek dark hair was twisted into an elaborate knot at her neck, and a lock had escaped and swung past her cheekbone, partially obscuring her face.

"Can I help you?" Kirk asked, in as polite a tone as he could muster. From her loose, casual attire he decided she did not belong to a flight crew, not even a civilian one; but her body language didn't signal the forced cheerfulness or impatience he had come to expect from terminal employees, either.

She pushed the lock of hair from her face and her gaze flickered between them, lingering on Kirk before returning to McCoy.

"Good evening. I'm sorry to intrude, but I . . . I overheard the security guard speaking to you." Her accent was faintly British. "My name is Renna Patel." She extended her hand first to the doctor and he took it without hesitation.

"Leonard McCoy. Nice to meet you, ma'am."

Kirk sighed inwardly and held his hand out. "James Kirk." He mentally smacked his head as a shadow of . . . what? —resignation? sorrow?—passed over her face. _Oh gods, what is it this time? _ For various reasons, at this point in his career his face and name were widely recognized across the quadrant, sometimes to his chagrin—he remembered with a wince the time he'd unsuspectingly sat next to the sister of a former lover at a concert on Renaba IV, and the unexpected _smack!_ across his cheek—-and he wondered how and what this young woman knew of him.

She withdrew her hand from his. "Pleased to meet you." But her voice was strained, and her hand stole to the pendant that hung at her throat.

_I don't believe you_, he thought and an awkward silence grew around them as she stood in silence, twisting her necklace. He fought an urge to flee, to claim sudden illness or a pressing business matter, or maybe a galactic emergency.

"May I sit?" She drew a shaky breath and McCoy rose to take her arm and guide her to a seat facing them.

"Are you all right?" The doctor's gaze was at once piercing and kind and she bit her lip to stop its trembling as she nodded. When she turned to Kirk, he braced himself, but was wholly unprepared for her next words.

"Captain Kirk, I'm not sure how to say this, but . . . I knew David, sir."

He stared at her in shock and let her words sink through his consciousness, hollowing out spaces that suddenly and urgently again ached to be filled. He opened his eyes and ignored McCoy's watchful eye as she continued, her voice almost inaudible.

"I couldn't believe it when I heard your name. I'm know it's been frightfully difficult, with all the publicity about Carol and David, and I'm sure you didn't expect to meet someone like me tonight." She leaned forward out of the shadows, hugging herself, and he saw the dark smudges under her eyes.

"Actually, I was not expecting to meet anyone tonight." He instantly regretted his clipped tone but he couldn't and wouldn't take the words back. McCoy scowled at him, caught for a moment between his friend and his manners, then offered her an easy smile.

"What the captain means is he thought that by hiding out on a civilian red-eye flight, he'd get to spend this little trip anonymous and undisturbed," he drawled. "You see, Ms. Patel, my friend here, who as I'm sure the entire galaxy knows, has been all over the vidstreams lately—what with the Genesis disaster, which you obviously already know about, not to mention those whales in the bay and the Klingon bird of prey nearly taking the bridge out—" he gestured toward the bay "—so he's a little cranky lately."

She chewed on her lip and withdrew again to the shadows. "I understand. I'm sorry, sir, I shouldn't have intruded, I'll leave—" She stood but McCoy grasped her hand with surprising force.

"Wait." He glared at Kirk until the captain cursed the doctor under his breath and forced a smile.

"McCoy's right. I was being selfish. Please, stay."


	2. Chapter 2

Her fingers wound around the pendant again and Kirk doubted it could withstand much more of her constant worrying.

"Would you like something to drink?" McCoy offered, and gestured at the bar adjoining the waiting area. She shook her head, staring at the floor, and Kirk waited, unsure what to say, and wondered if she would want to give him answers he might not be ready to seek.

"You were . . . a friend?" He finally forced out the words, and she nodded and let out her breath in a rush.

"We were friends. Good friends. And then—then we were . . ." She broke off and met his eyes for only an instant before she winced and looked away. He thought of David and Saavik, of Carol, considered a dozen things to say, to ask, and in a paralyzing moment of panic, discarded them all.

"How did you know him?" The doctor's voice was gentle, for both of them, and she settled back and released her grip on the arms of the chair.

"We met at university. We were lab partners in our fourth year and then we ended up doing our graduate work together."

"You're a scientist, too, then?" McCoy snapped his fingers and sat up straight. "Wait a minute—I knew I'd heard your name somewhere!" He turned to Kirk. "Spock and Sarek were talking about her not long ago, remember, Jim? Before we left Vulcan? You're that hotshot biophysicist at Oxford, aren't you?" He raised an eyebrow. "You're doing some kind of theoretical sub-something-or-other stuff that goes right over my head."

She ducked her head as her face flushed. "Well, that _was_ me," she said with a wry smile. "But I'm not so sure anymore. That's why I've decided to try something new. My flight for Vulcan leaves in about an hour. But that's another story." She shrugged.

"Anyway, after we'd completed our doctorates I stayed on Earth to teach and work on my research, and he . . . well, he left." Her mouth tightened around the words.

Kirk forced his shoulders to loosen, but his hands were white-knuckled where they rested on his knees. "You must be aware that David and I only recently met. In fact, I don't know much about David's life before Genesis. I'm sure you know more about him than I do."

Carol had recently begun returning his calls; had even, to his surprise, proposed a weekend trip together "sometime soon", and even as his heart soared, it also ached at the hesitation and long silences during those awkward calls. But still she refused to discuss anything more than the barest details of David's life. She had lost her life's work, her son—_their_ son—and she would not allow him to comfort her and grieve with her.

"Tell me about him."

She stared at the ceiling for a long moment before she spoke, silent for so long his palms became clammy against the metal of the chair. When she replied, her eyes were distant, her words tentative, and he had to lean forward to hear her.

"He was brilliant. Passionate. And gods, those beautiful eyes." She blushed again and touched her hand to her forehead. "When he woke in the morning, before I could even pour a cup of coffee, he was already scribbling equations. Sometimes he'd shut himself away for days at a time, working through a new theory. I kept telling him to slow down, he would have plenty of time to figure out the universe—" her brow crinkled "—but sometimes it just irritated the bloody hell out of me. One time I threw a book at him—"

"—You threw...?"

"—and it missed him," she continued, "but I'm afraid it broke his favorite pendulum clock." A smile played at the corners of her mouth.

"Pendulum clock?" Kirk echoed again, beginning to feel foolish..

"He collected pendulum clocks. You know, the things people used to use for—"

"Yes, of course I know what a clock is," he said. "I have some antiques, too. But I didn't know he . . . never mind. You broke it?" She winced at the reproach in his voice.

"I swear I messaged every antique store on the continent, but I never found another one just like it. And he never forgave me for it."

Kirk tried to imagine his son in this other life, the fullness of a world he'd never known existed. "In the time I knew David," he said, "I saw his intensity, his passion, too."

She nodded. "And his intensity fueled his impatience. Where did he get that from?" she wondered, and McCoy shot Kirk a glance that she couldn't interpret. "He was so different from Carol in some ways—she's a methodical researcher, cautious even. But he didn't want to wait for things to happen. Maybe," her tone took on a bitterness that made him look up, "Maybe that's why he decided to try something unconventional, use the protomatter in Genesis."

"_You_ know—" A passing alien rotated its shiny stalked eyes to him in alarm and Kirk forced his voice down to a furious whisper "—you know about the protomatter?" News of the events in the Mutara Sector had spread rapidly throughout the galaxy, but so far the Federation had managed to keep top secret David's unsanctioned use of protomatter. She raised an eyebrow.

"Don't worry, I've got clearance, at least enough that we won't get in trouble for talking about it. I've been able to piece together the essentials of the project. Carol told me a bit about it, off the record, and I've scrounged through the Starfleet databases for information that's not yet been crypted."

"What if he hadn't?" McCoy mused. "Used protomatter, that is. Would it have made any difference? Surely they would have found another solution eventually." She gave him a sidelong glance.

"No, I don't believe so, Doctor. Carol's research group was on the leading edge, doing work no one would have dreamed of a decade ago, but I believe they would have ultimately failed. They would have lost their funding and been forced to abandon the project." Her accent intensified as her voice rose. "Perhaps that madman Khan would have still stolen the Genesis torpedo, but it would have detonated unsuccessfully and the explosion in Mutara would have been the end of it. How many people were killed because of David's impatience and immaturity?"

"If he had not used protomatter," she continued, her expression hardening, "if he had not defied the ethics of the scientific community, I believe David would still be alive today. He wouldn't have died a senseless death on that god-forsaken planet."

"He died for his friends, Ms. Patel." Kirk's tone was icy.

She flinched, and the fierceness vanished from her features. "I'm not blaming him, Captain. I didn't mean it that way." She fixed her gaze on the floor and seemed to shrink even further into her seat.

"You know," McCoy spoke up after a few moments, "people feel a lot of things when they grieve, and none of them are wrong." The doctor's words were directed at neither of them in particular; as he expected, Kirk ignored him, but to his surprise Renna looked up at him, her eyes bright with too wide, as if she were trying to hold back her tears.

"I think I need that drink now."


	3. Chapter 3

When McCoy returned from the bar, the captain took his drink without comment and stared out the windows, his posture rigid. Renna's remarks echoed a brief, painful conversation he'd had with Lieutenant Saavik aboard the Klingon vessel after fleeing the Genesis planet_. You're trying to tell me that David, my son_—_a victim, for god's sake_—_should be blamed for this tragedy?_ He recalled his fury, and the emptiness in her eyes as she turned from him, and his regret was sudden and sharp.

A quiet gasp brought him back to the present. Renna stared wide-eyed at her drink. "What is this?" she whispered hoarsely.

McCoy looked pleased. "Why, that's Calaman sherry. The finest beverage you'll find this side of the neutral zone. It has wonderful medicinal properties." She heard Kirk snort softly.

"Don't believe a word he says. That stuff's a headache in a bottle."

McCoy rose, shaking his head. "Never stopped _you _before, Jim-boy." An unreadable expression passed over Renna's face as the doctor headed back to the bar.

"You're good friends."

Kirk toyed with his glass before placing it on a nearby table, still half-empty. "Yes. Sometimes I think he knows me better than I do. More importantly, he puts up with me." He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck, then, to her relief, he gave her a half smile. They both watched in silence for a moment as a group of yachts came into sight in the bay, gliding gracefully beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, their hulls aglow with lights above and within.

"It's been a month or so since you've returned to Earth," she said offhandedly. "And the news coverage of Genesis is starting to dwindle, so Starfleet can probably afford to let you disappear for a few days. Are you and the doctor traveling to attend a debriefing?"

He gave her a slow, appraising glance. "Yes."

"Carol will be there?"

"She's already there."

She nodded once and swirled the crimson liquid in her glass.

"Please don't tell her I broke that clock. It was a gift from her."

He looked down to hide his smile. "I promise."

She finished her drink in one gulp and drew in a desperate, sucking breath, her throat at first numb then ablaze.

"I'm afraid you may have to carry me out of here," she wheezed as McCoy returned. He settled into his seat and then reached across to pat her hand.

"Don't worry, dear, it wouldn't be the first time I've had to do that." He closed his eyes closed and savored a swallow of his luminous green beverage.

As they watched the last of the yachts disappear into the night, the fire in her throat subsided and a heavy, welcome warmth spread through her body. She roused herself with a shake and turned to Kirk.

"Captain—" she began.

"Please. Call me Jim."

"All right, then." She paused, struggling. "Jim, do you know how there are things you wish you'd had the opportunity or courage to say to someone, and then suddenly it's too late?"

He considered his words before replying. "Yes. I know about that."

"Do you—are there things you wish you'd told David?"

He became still and his eyes were expressionless as he looked again at the moon, at the fainter twin that still followed her; then met McCoy's eyes, and stubbornly pushed away the question he read there. _I know, Bones. But not here. Not now._

"Yes. There are. What about you?" He picked up his drink again and gripped it, focusing on the edges of the glass that bit into his fingers.

She shivered and rubbed her arms. Her words came slowly at first, then with an urgency that made his stomach clench.

"I wish . . . I wish he had known how much his love meant to me. I've never been loved without question, without conditions, before or since. He made me feel _real_, you know, like that children's book about the little boy and his toy rabbit—" her voice broke and she screwed her eyes shut. "When . . . when it ended I thought I couldn't go on. Do you know what that's like?" Kirk closed his eyes too, as if to shut out her grief and his, and the memories of a life long, long ago.

"He didn't end it, did he?" McCoy asked gently, and she shook her head and pressed her hand to her mouth, but it was too late.

"I did. I ruined it," she said, and rubbed tears from her face with her sleeve. "I woke up one day and realized how much he meant to me, how much I _needed_ him, and it terrified me. So what did I do?" Her voice became harsh. "Turned him into something—-someone—he wasn't, and pushed him away, before he could push me away. The next thing I heard he was out there, on Regula, working on some top-secret research that was going to change the universe. And I never saw him again." Her shoulders sagged and she buried her face in her hands.

_Regula_. Jim was paralyzed by the images that slammed into his mind: corpses strung up, swinging grotesquely; Terrell and his tortured desperation; that _thing_ in Chekov's ear; the flashing knife as David attacked, so furious, so hurt.

"When Carol called me to tell me about—about David, she was distant and so cold," and Carol's name, more than her anguished voice, roused him from the past. "Of course I knew she was grieving, I could see the hurt all over her, but some of her anger, her blame, was for me." She shoved a strand of hair from her eyes and her hand caught the pendant at her neck. It tumbled loose, the clasp clattering to the floor.

McCoy raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure you're not just blaming yourself?" He picked up the clasp and held it out to her, and as she took it he saw her bloody and ragged cuticles, her nails bitten to the quick.

"None of us are at fault for what happened on Genesis," Kirk said heavily. "Kruge ordered David's death. He's the only one to blame." He heard again, as in his dreams, Saavik's voice from Genesis, and the horror bleeding through her calm words.

"Maybe someday you—both of you—can believe that," McCoy murmured. "And forgive yourselves."

_And David, for being human, _Kirk realized,_ and Carol, for all those years. But the Klingons? Never. Never forgive nor forget_.

"Transpace flight 379 to Vulcan is now boarding. All passengers of flight 379 report to gate H6."

Renna started at the announcement and looked up, regret passing across her tear-streaked features. "That's my flight." She drew a deep, shuddery breath and studied Kirk, her eyes memorizing his face.

"I see you in him, sir." She could not have known how her words filled his soul. "And even though he believed his father was dead, I think some part of him always hoped . . ." She closed her eyes and laughed softly. "I think he must have been surprised to learn that _you_ were his father. He gave me this." She held up the pendant. "He said people used to exchange rings . . . I guess he knew I wouldn't be able to accept a ring." She shook her head as if to clear it, and stood.

"This is the final boarding call for Transpace flight 379. Report to gate H6 immediately."

"I have to go."

Kirk reached out to touch her arm. "Renna . . . maybe when you're settled, can I—"

She shook her head and held up a hand, forcing a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"I don't know about you, Captain, but I've said too many goodbyes in my life. Perhaps 'live long and prosper' is more appropriate now. It was very nice to meet you, both of you. Please give Carol my regards." She turned and disappeared into the crush of people. Kirk stared after her, torn.

"Well." For once, McCoy seemed at a loss for words.

The chime of the announcement system saved Kirk from his indecision.

"TransPort flight 176 is now boarding. All passengers of flight 176 to Starbase 8, report immediately to your departure gate."

"About damn time," the doctor muttered, and pulled his bag from under his seat, then stood and touched Kirk's arm. "You okay, Jim?"

He didn't pull away this time. The gift for Carol felt heavy in his jacket pocket and he pulled it out, then looked at it for a long moment before tossing it into the trash receptacle.

"I'll be fine, Bones. Let's go."


End file.
